SEARCH OUR SITE

Performance Works NW is gearing up for its 10th annual fundraiser inspired by the work of avant-garde theatre pioneer Richard Foreman.

Formerly known as a “Mini-Festival,” this avant-extravanza is “Mini-” no more. Get ready for 10 days of Foremanesque tomfoolery around the city with a glittering constellation of dancers, poets, media and theater artists who dismantle, contaminate, rearrange, & respond to selections from Foreman’s online royalty-free notebooks. It all culminates with a grand finale performance at PWNW on Saturday November 17, 2012.

Warm-up: The 9 days leading up to the grand finale recapitulate the Foreman texts used in years 1-9 of the Festival and feature a smorgasbord of geographically-dispersed events such as an oracle, a cocktail party, a haunted house, an afternoon of comedy, collage-making, an intimate car performance + mobile disco etc. at various times of day. Scroll down for details!

The Grand Finale performance, as in past festivals, is based on a newly-selected text kept secret until 10 days prior. On November 17, at a marathon performance of brief works, audiences will be amused, befuddled, surprised and thrilled by inventive stagings of dance, theater, performance, video, music created by the intrepid gang of artists who rose to the challenge of creating works in just 10 days. Click HERE for details.

WARM-UP EVENTS November 8-16
(The year text was used for the Foreman Fest is indicated in parentheses)

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Thursday Nov. 8 –ROLY POLY IN CHINA (2003)Invisible Dogwith Mark Owens
Labeling the world with words from the Foreman text Roly Poly in China all day every dayNov. 8-17. World-wide and at http://foremanfest.tumblr.com/

Collage-making with Grace Nowakoski 2-4 pmLike words? Like Pictures? Come make textual collage. Grace will provide art materials and a bowl full of a deconstructed Richard Foreman text from which to select your own personal poem to inspire you to create a collage. Near NE Alberta and 15th. Limited to 10 people per half hour. Please RSVP to vnowakoski@gmail.com with your preferred time and the subject line COLLAGE. You will receive the exact address in a confirmation email.
Suggested donation = $5

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Friday Nov. 9 — YEAR 2000 (2004)Here I am, doing my paradise thing — A Tiny Dance by Linda Austin at the Seattle Art Museum Remix Event as part of the exhibit “Elles”To see a re-creation of this performance come to the Nov. 11 Cocktail event!

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Hand me a letter!Somebody opens a letter. It’s empty– the envelope is empty.Someone finds the blank sheet of paper that flutters to the floor (The envelope wasn’t empty, there was a blank piece of paper)Someone can’t escape writing something (what?) on the blank piece of paper– do we claim that in retrospect the envelope wasn’t empty?Let’s team up!(Foreman text from Collectionus)

Sign up with Emily to engage in a mail-art exchange. She will send you a task, a bit of text, an image. Then you will send something to her (documentation of you task, a response either in image or text or mail-able object). Emily will send a final response which you get to keep.
Suggested donation: $10-15

A Foreman-infested trip. Intimate car performance. A matrimonial tourbus, performance van, exploration tank, and make-it-what-you want ride. Have you ever thought that a Honda CRV Hatchback would make for a perfect stage? Both sporadic and! inconsequential yet also structured and profound, waited for spectacular arrivalswaits for you. Join three friends, their cars and a Kaj-Anne Pepper guided tour/Mobile Disco for this unique trip around the city.
Suggested Donation = $5-$5,000

Use the doodle link below to sign-up for a time. Just put in your name and the time you want if you have any problems just post here and we’ll get you taken care of.http://doodle.com/q3eqycc9uhappbqg

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Wednesday Nov. 14 — DISMEMBER (2009)Miss Magdalen’s Exclusive Richard Foreman Oracle™ Experience Sign up with Tiffany Lee Brown at tiffany@plazm.com if you’d like to get a reading Wednesdayevening. Activities will happen in the Sunnyside/Hawthorne/Belmont neighborhood. You’ll get a text or email telling you where to go when.
Suggested donation: $5-$50

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Thursday Nov. 15 — CAFE (2010)Terrible Title: Temporwaryly: A Foremaunted Apartment--(yes a haunted house after Halloween—it’s POST-modern 🙂Lucid Location:257C N Ivy St. The basement apartment of the blue house, door to the right of the main porch down the stairs.Creepy Collaborators: Anthony Hudson, David Krom, Grace Nowakoski, keyon gaskin, Jen Hackworth, Natacha Ruiz, Rosanna Ybarra, and Paige McKinneyFrightening Fee:$3-300 (sliding-scale)6:30-9:30 pma performance will begin every 15 minutes and last 20-30 min

Even creepier than Richard Foreman looks, Temporwaryly: A Foremaunted Apartment, is a performance that makes use of sinister characters, odd images, eerie sound-scapes and rancid olfactory elements to scare your socks off (literally you will be asked to remove your socks and shoes at the start, don’t worry we’ll return them…hopefully:)

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Suggested donation: $5 –15. No one turned away. All proceeds go to Performance Works NorthWest.

For the TLN Late Now Beach Blanket Foreman Fest, that champion of unbridled, open curiosity devoted to inclusive ludic subversion, host Leo Daedalus plays quixotic jester in the court of commercial spectacle, co-opting late-night TV structures in service of the deeply interesting, the sharply ludicrous, the thoughtfully unexpected, and the rigorously uncategorizable. Join Leo for an interview with Linda Austin, instigator of the Richard Foreman Mini-Festival, Portland’s annual experimental performance art fest.

BYO Beach Blanket
It wouldn’t be a TLN interview if it weren’t also a beach party, would it? (Never heard that? It’s a new rule, and certain to be very short-lived.) So bring your beach blanket, your little pail, a cushion, and ideally a walrus.

BUT WHY?The Late Nowwas conceived in the back seat of Foreman Fest. In 2011, Leo Daedalus emceed FFEST #9 (pix here) with experimental henchmen Alex Reagan and John Berendzen. That weekend, what would become The Late Now went from vague inclination turned to crazy scheme. And so, in honor of the FFEST phenomenon, The Late Now is avant-proud to host day 9 (“Buddha Pting”) of FFEST #10.

Expect other Foremanic freakiness, which we may not know about until we read about it in the next day’s papers. Rumor has it that TLN’s own Unspecified Correspondent Dora Gaskill will make a video appearance. Plus music. Or, “music.” Click HERE for more…

Performance Works NW * 4625 SE 67th Ave. Portland, OR 97206 503-777-1907
$15-$30 sliding for one seating * $20-$75 sliding scale for the whole showLIMITED SEATINGTickets for the Nov. 17 show will be sold at the warm-up events and online at http://foremanfest.brownpapertickets.com/